They were standing a mile or so away from the looming presence of Burkhard Castle. Ahead was the path up the nearest crag. The Drobax were hurling themselves up this steep track, pushing the Brasingian defenders back. They had already smashed their way through three of the wooden gates that had been constructed to stop their ascent. The Brasingians continued to enjoy a height advantage, and the losses were still far heavier on the Drobax side. But any Brasingian slow enough to get caught by the monsters was immediately overwhelmed and torn apart; or else simply thrown off the crag to meet the same fate down below.
At the bottom of the path was Arioc’s innovation. A group of armed Drobax waited for any of their kind to descend from the crag. Here, retreating Drobax would be butchered. They had been given a stark choice: force your way up to the top of the crag, and live; fail, and die. It had provided the extra motivation needed for the progress to be made.
Arioc stood watching the attack impassively. Shira’s uncle, Koren, always deferential to her husband, waited on him attentively. The Isharite wizard, Mehrab, was also present. Since Arioc’s success he wore a permanent smirk on his smug face.
An arrival from further behind them interrupted the silence. An Isharite strode forwards and sank to one knee in front of Arioc. His long black hair was plastered with sweat, and he looked pale and ill. He physically shook as he spoke.
‘Your Majesty, I have come from Lord Rostam with haste. Our army engaged with the Krykkers and Kalinthians. We were driven from the field by their forces, and our own soldiers are in full retreat.’
A wordless shout of fury erupted from Arioc’s mouth. Shira felt something close to relief. Her own lack of success in Brasingia suddenly didn’t seem so bad compared to such an utter disaster.
‘I need to get to Samir Durg immediately,’ said Arioc, fighting to control his anger. ‘Mehrab, get your men ready.’
With that, Arioc marched off, accompanied by Mehrab. As an afterthought, he turned back to Shira.
‘You’re in charge here,’ he said curtly, before departing for good.
Shira met eyes with her uncle.
‘That’s one Council meeting I might have enjoyed attending.’
24
The Tower of Diis
GYRMUND HELD MONEVA AS IF SHE WERE a captured prisoner, while she led him through a maze of corridors and courtyards towards the Tower of Diis. On their left a domed central building loomed over them; on their right were the high walls and towers of Samir Durg, the diatine crystals within them glinting in the morning sun.
Moneva had been right. The whole fortress seemed to be alive with energy and tension, soldiers and servants rushing in every direction. It was hard to believe that Herin and Clarin’s small force, in one small tower, could have caused such disruption. Of course, Gyrmund considered, some of the Barbarians had chosen to stay behind, and release their kin from the other slave pits. Maybe they had succeeded in raising a second force which had been discovered? Whatever the reason, everyone they passed seemed to have an urgent job to do, and few gave them a second glance.
Ahead of them, the Tower of Diis came into view. It was by far the largest of the towers Gyrmund had seen, situated in the central section of the northern wall of the fortress, and dominating its surroundings. He could see two guards on duty outside the main entrance. This was it. Ignoring the tightening in his gut and chest, he steered Moneva towards the entrance, doing his best to look nonchalant.
The Isharite guards were tall and well built, each holding a spear that crossed each other to bar entrance to the Tower. As Gyrmund approached, they caught sight of the brooch with Arioc’s sigil, and pulled their spears in. Even here, Arioc’s power counted.
‘She’s for the prisons,’ said Gyrmund. He did his best to put on a Haskan accent, just in case the guards could notice the difference.
The guards nodded in a disinterested way.
‘Why’s Arioc got a human running his errands?’ asked one of them pointedly.
‘King Arioc,’ said Gyrmund, as if taking offence, ‘rates me very highly. My family is very important in Haskany.’
The guards laughed at him, pulling open the doors.
‘Very important in Haskany,’ repeated the second guard, imitating Gyrmund’s accent. ‘That don’t mean shit in Samir Durg. You’re just an errand boy, here.’
Gyrmund guided Moneva through the doors.
‘Where do I go?’ he asked.
‘Down,’ said one of the guards unhelpfully, before they closed the doors on them.
The entrance corridor was only dimly lit, and they took care as they walked. Neither spoke. They had to assume that they could be heard; someone might even be watching them. It was therefore vital that they keep up the pretence of prisoner and soldier.
After a short distance, the corridor branched off to the left and right. It looked like the left path led to a guard room, so they headed to the right, into the main part of the Tower. They arrived in a large, slightly better lit, irregular shaped ground floor chamber. It was empty of people. Various dimly lit passages led off it, at all angles. On the far wall, a set of stairs led upwards to the next floor—but the guards had said ‘down’.
Turning to the left, they began circling the chamber, looking for a route down. It didn’t take long. The second passage they came to was very short, and ended with a set of stone steps heading down into the dungeons. Gyrmund could smell the damp coming from the underground rooms below.
Warily, Gyrmund began the journey down, still holding Moneva by the arm. Below ground level, the Tower of Diis was even more poorly lit. Gyrmund, his eyes not yet fully adjusted to the gloom, could barely make out the next step in front of him as he slowly negotiated his way, his footsteps sounding heavy in the silent and oppressive atmosphere. Gingerly stretching his front foot forwards, he finally found himself on the dungeon floor, and helped Moneva down to join him.
Their descent must have alerted someone. Gyrmund could hear quick footsteps coming in their direction. As they got nearer, he made out a cowled figure approaching them. The figure looked Gyrmund up and down, taking in the brooch still attached to his cloak. As he did so, Gyrmund got a glimpse of the face under the hood: a man with a thin, mottled face, surrounded with lank, greasy hair.
‘You have someone for us?’ he asked in a croaky voice.
‘King Arioc has sent his prisoner here. She’s to go with the wizard he captured.’
The cowled jailer, if jailer he was, turned his attention to Moneva.
‘Ah,’ he said, with an unpleasant grin. ‘Arioc’s whore. Had enough of you, has he?’
Gyrmund went cold. Arioc’s whore? His eyes flicked to Moneva, but she had turned her face away to the side. So, that was how she had been allowed to move around the fortress so freely. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. He knew she had done it to save herself, and had risked her life to save him and the others. Nonetheless, emotions swirled around his head—anger, hatred, jealousy, and every other kind of pain threatened to overwhelm him.
The jailer was watching them both.
‘Didn’t think I’d know about the goings on up there, did you?’ he asked, misreading both of their reactions. ‘I know plenty.’
Gyrmund didn’t reply. He took a deep breath, trying to regain a sense of control.
‘Well, anyway, I’ll take her from here,’ said the jailer coldly, perhaps offended by Gyrmund’s lack of response.
Gyrmund was reminded of his own journey to the dungeons of Coldeberg Castle. He remembered being accompanied by Salvinus’s soldier, who had taken him all the way to the cell, making sure that Gyrmund was in chains before he left. Curtis was his name. Gyrmund wasn’t likely to ever forget it. ‘Have fun’ were the last words Curtis had said to him before leaving.
‘I need to see her to the cell,’ he said to the jailer.
The jailer frowned with displeasure, looking at Gyrmund with suspicion. Gyrmund stared back, and something in his expression dissuaded the jailer from making
an argument of it.
‘Very well,’ he conceded, retreating up the corridor.
Gyrmund led Moneva after him. They followed the jailer down the dark corridor. Gyrmund’s eyes had adjusted somewhat to the light, now. The walls of the corridor were made from rough stone. They passed through a wooden door. Now Gyrmund could see doors leading off the corridor, regularly spaced along each wall. These must be the prison cells. He looked about. No other jailers or guards could be seen. Was Soren in one of these cells?
The jailer stopped at one of the doors, fumbling at his side for a set of keys. Gyrmund tried to remain relaxed. It hadn’t crossed his mind before, but he wondered what kind of state Soren would be in after all this time.
The jailer unlocked the door and swung it inwards. The door shuddered along the floor as he did so, making a loud scraping noise. Gyrmund peered inside. At first, he thought it was a trick, and eyed the jailer nervously. Then, he returned his gaze to the inside of the cell. There was nothing in there but a large wooden box. But now he recognised it as the box in which the Isharites had transported Soren from Edeleny to Samir Durg. Had he been kept in there all this time?
He swung his gaze to the jailer, his mouth open in mute shock.
The jailer gave him a toothy grin. Then, before either of them could react, Moneva was shoving the blade of her dagger into the base of the jailer’s skull. He shuddered—a throaty breath escaped from his mouth—and then Moneva was catching his limp body, and carefully lying it down onto the floor of the cell.
As he watched her, Gyrmund wondered how many people she had killed in her short life.
‘Can we just lift it off?’ she asked him, nodding at the box as she wiped the blade clean on the jailer’s robes and sheathed it.
Gyrmund moved over to the box to examine it. It had a heavy lid but no locks or chains on it.
‘Yes. Come on.’
Standing on each side of the box, they lifted the handles and heaved the lid off. An appalling smell assaulted Gyrmund’s nostrils as they did so.
‘Get him out,’ said Moneva, gagging at the smell.
Gyrmund peered in. Soren was in the box, sitting with his knees hunched up and his head resting against the side. His eyes were closed and he looked dead. He had soiled himself many times, and the stench inside the box was horrendous.
Gyrmund reached in carefully, trying not to injure him. He grasped the wizard under the arms and lifted him up into a standing position. He had lost a lot of weight, and his thin limbs dangled in the air.
Soren groaned; he was alive. But he seemed unable to put any weight on his legs as Gyrmund held him. Moneva grabbed his legs, and they lifted him gently out of the box onto the stone floor of the cell.
‘Strip him,’ said Moneva.
Gyrmund pulled at Soren’s trousers, as Moneva moved over to remove the jailer’s clothes. He looked worriedly at the cell’s open door, dreading it slamming shut on them. But so far, no-one else had come to interfere with their rescue.
Soren lay with his eyes closed, barely moving as they did their best to wipe him clean, then dressed him in the robes of the dead jailer. Gyrmund sat him up, holding onto him, while Moneva got out her pot of fermented mare’s milk.
‘Soren, I’m going to give you a drink,’ she said gently, putting the pot to his lips. ‘Don’t drink too much.’
His lips were cracked and bloody, but he took a sip and swallowed. He took some more. Gyrmund felt his body relax somewhat.
‘Where am I?’ he managed to say.
‘You’re in the Tower of Diis, in Samir Durg. This is Moneva. I’ve come with Gyrmund to rescue you, so you need to keep quiet. Your eyes are closed. Can you try to open them?’
Soren scrunched up his eyes and forced them open, blinking in the paltry light of his prison cell.
‘We need to go, Soren,’ said Moneva.
Gyrmund lifted him up, but Soren couldn’t make his legs stand.
‘Put him down’ whispered Moneva. ‘Rub his legs.’
They worked on a leg each, rubbing the wizard’s muscles back into life. As the blood flowed back into his legs Soren screwed his face up in pain, but resisted crying out.
Again, Gyrmund pulled him up to his feet. This time, Soren was able to stay on his feet. But his back was bent double, and he looked to be in considerable pain. If he had spent the last three weeks constricted in that box, it was no surprise. He had clearly been starved in that time too, but his captors must have been feeding him something, or he would be dead by now.
‘I can’t see,’ said Soren, his voice croaky, as if he had been doing a lot of shouting.
‘What?’ asked Gyrmund.
‘It’s all a blur,’ added the wizard, waving a hand in front of his eyes.
Moneva and Gyrmund shared a look. This was proving to be far more difficult than they had anticipated.
‘Rest on me,’ said Gyrmund, putting Soren’s hand on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, but we have no more time. We have to go.’
They exited the cell. Gyrmund was relieved to be leading them back up the dungeon corridor without having been noticed by anyone else. He took the stone steps up to the ground floor slowly and carefully, guiding the frail wizard, reaching the large, irregular chamber of the Tower of Diis. It was still empty.
Gyrmund and Moneva looked around uncertainly. They didn’t have an escape plan. The two guards outside the main entrance would be virtually impossible to remove in broad daylight. Gyrmund could see Moneva looking around for alternative exits. Maybe she could somehow sneak her way out of the Tower, but not with Soren in tow.
‘What is it?’ asked the wizard, frowning at them.
‘There are two guards outside the main door of the Tower,’ explained Gyrmund.
‘Take me,’ Soren commanded.
Shrugging at each other, they led him down the corridor to the entrance. Gyrmund was uneasy. Soren sounded sure of himself—but he wasn’t convinced that the wizard was in full control of his faculties after his prolonged confinement in the box.
‘Go on,’ said Soren, his voice sounding irritable.
After exchanging glances with Moneva, who seemed willing to trust Soren, Gyrmund rapped on the door. It was opened and the two guards raised their eyebrows at the sight of Gyrmund, not only still accompanied by Moneva, but also by a strange new figure in a hooded robe.
Soren walked slowly forward, looking in the direction of the guards. There was something about the wizard’s eyes, as they stared, unseeing, at the two Isharites, that disturbed Gyrmund.
‘I will need an escort,’ Soren said, in a voice that was both his and not his.
Nodding in agreement, the two guards turned around and walked forward a few paces, each holding their spear out in front of them.
Gyrmund understood that magic was being used. He had seen it used often enough over the last few weeks, both by Soren and other wizards. But he had not seen anything quite like this. He cast his mind back to the events in Edeleny. Soren, who had lost his magical powers when using them in the Wilderness, had regained them in the Temenos in Edeleny. Gyrmund had witnessed with his own eyes Soren draining the magic from a Caladri wizard, Agoston—and restoring his own. He recognised that, somehow, in ways he didn’t understand, Soren was a different wizard to the one he had been before.
Soren put a hand on Gyrmund’s shoulder to steady himself, and they followed the two guards out into the daylight. Soren took a deep breath of fresh air, closing his eyes and smiling with pleasure. Gyrmund understood the feeling.
‘We escaped with Herin and Clarin,’ he informed Soren, only just realising that they had yet to explain this to him. ‘They have a small force of escaped prisoners in a tower in the south-east corner of the fortress,’ he added, pointing in the approximate direction, before realising that Soren probably couldn’t see this gesture.
Soren nodded. ‘I am glad they’re alive,’ he said. ‘But we need to go there.’
He pointed instead to the domed structure in the centre of the
fortress. ‘What is that?’ the wizard asked the two guards.
‘That is the Great Hall of Lord Erkindrix,’ one of them replied.
Soren nodded. ‘Take us there.’
‘We can’t go there!’ said Moneva in a shocked voice. ‘We need to escape!’
‘Herin and Clarin need us,’ Gyrmund added. ‘You need to help them.’
Soren looked from Moneva to Gyrmund. ‘Herin and Clarin don’t stand a chance. Not unless we strike at Erkindrix now. We need to finish this.’
He shuffled off after the two Isharite guards.
‘Wait!’ said Gyrmund angrily, grabbing Soren and spinning him around. ‘What makes you think we stand a chance of defeating Erkindrix? What makes you think Erkindrix is even there?’
Soren looked at him. He had changed again: the powerful wizard was gone, and all Gyrmund could see was a frail and vulnerable looking man.
‘Belwynn told me.’
‘Can you tell him,’ Clarin murmured to Tamir, ‘that is the way out of here.’
Tamir pointed to the large corner tower of Samir Durg, and made a series of gestures and grunts at the Bear-man. The Bear-man waved his hands in the air, vicious claws threatening to cut those around him. He roared. Clarin sighed. There seemed to be no way of telling the creature to keep quiet. Meanwhile, time was running out.
‘Well?’ he asked, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.
‘I think he understands,’ replied Tamir.
‘That will have to do,’ Clarin replied. ‘Can you tell your men it’s time to go?’
The longer they lingered, the worse their situation got.
Clarin was gambling that they had persuaded the Bear-man to lead a charge on the entrance to the corner tower. Clarin and Herin would lead Tamir’s Barbarians and follow up the charge, in an attempt to secure the tower for themselves. If they did, they would have a much stronger tower to defend. They would also, according to Moneva at least, control an exit out of the fortress. If they didn’t—well, the gamble will have failed.
The Weapon Takers Saga Box Set Page 66
